


dust and gold

by philthestone



Series: pocket full of sand 'verse [3]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Bespin fic, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Gen, Implied/Referenced Torture, Mild Blood, yep
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-14
Updated: 2014-09-14
Packaged: 2018-02-17 09:39:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2305136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/philthestone/pseuds/philthestone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Han has learned over the years that he's known them that if anything Happens, it will inevitably be the Skywalkers' fault: <br/>Missing boot? Skywalkers' fault. Broken hyperdrive? Skywalkers' fault. The End of the World? <em>Definitely</em> the Skywalkers' fault.</p><p>(Or, Bespin, in four simple steps. AU)</p>
            </blockquote>





	dust and gold

**Author's Note:**

> wow so I'm actually pretty happy with how this turned out. It's kind of dark ... inevitably darker than any other trash family au piece I've written, because Bespin lends itself to being really dark and morbid and kind of intense, emotionally _and_ physically.  
>  ANYWAY.  
> I make up for it with flangsty father/daughter moments because the whole point of this au is warm fuzzy skywalker family feelings, OBVIOUSLY. Also, I reaaaallly wanted to write Bespin in the trash family au, because Bespin is one of my favorite sequences ever. shoutout to tumblr user ellelalee for helping me with the ideas for this!
> 
> (Title from Fall Out Boy's "centuries", because it's inevitably become my new trash family au anthem. Go check it out, bros.)
> 
> Reviews are very very welcome :)

A prologue, to set the scene:

The woman, small and pale, dark hair glimmering with near-invisible strands of silver, puts her mug of tea down on the table, fingers white around the handle. Stares at the man in front of her.

“What,” she says. “What, do you mean, exactly, dangerous?”

(There are always things that a mother will never forgive herself for.)

***

The flight there is simple enough – jump to hyperspace, _fail_ at jumping to hyperspace, dodge the Imps, yell at each other, rinse, repeat. She’s barely twenty-one and her fingers are lost in the sleeves of an over-large white shirt that is rather cleaner than she might have expected but frayed around the edges, her ‘sabre clipped to her belt and her hair twisted in a braid around her head.

So, yes, the flight there is simple enough, if you’re into that sort of thing.

But once they _get_ there –

Well.

***

She can feel the blood bubbling at the corner of her lip where the butt of the ‘trooper’s rifle smashed into her jaw, but she can see the splotches of red staining his shirt, dribbling down his chin and spotting the concrete floor, where his face and chest took the impact of the first four hits against her. 

She feels her stomach shift, like gravity’s pulling it forward, not down, and she clenches her fists, white around the knuckles.

She says, “leave him _alone,_ ” and wants to slip the weapon out from under her sleeve, wants to send each and every one of them crashing to the ground, if only it would make them _stop._

***

The flash of blue against red is striking and beautiful, she would probably think, if she wasn’t fighting for (her own life, his life, Luke’s life, _everyone_ ) – something, something more important than she’s ever done before. She can feel it in the Force, the threads of light spinning and connecting and with each jarring spark of laser on laser, each laugh that comes out of its (because that _thing_ is not a human being) shriveled white mouth, she feels another chip at her sanity.

(They grab her arms, moments later, and she can still feel the sting in her hand where the weapon twisted away and was flung out the window and _kriffing hells, Dad is going to_ kill _me,_ because that is the second time she’s lost it and Dad says that the stupid thing is her life, so _that’s_ a problem.)

***

She’s fairly sure his ribs are broken, because breathing seems to be hard. 

Breathing is turning out pretty difficult for her, too, but not because her ribs are broken, so she ignores it and kneels down beside him and brushes the hair away from his forehead (cold sweat, skin clammy, and her hands shake) because it makes her feel marginally less useless.

“’S my fault,” he mutters, and opens his eyes to look at her and she shakes her head.

“You nerf,” she says. “No it isn’t.”

(She can see the blood on his teeth.)

“No –” A swallow, _don’t choke, not on your own blood_ – “No, I shouldn’t’ve – he didn’t –”

She kisses him, to shut him up. She can feel the reddish-brown stains on her lips when she pulls away.

***

(An interlude, take one: 

Her words, uttered faux-confident and with as much dignity as she can _possibly_ muster, slipping off her tongue before she realizes how silly they sound. 

“I happen to like nice men,” she tells him with what she hopes is conviction, but a moment later she’s giggling uncontrollably and he’s giving her this _look_ because probably the only “nice” man she has ever met is her twin brother and _that_ is not the point. So she rolls her eyes and stands on tiptoe, presses her mouth to his before he can be a smartass about it, and she has to tell herself that she hasn’t been waiting for this moment for years.)

***

When Calrissian shows up in the holding cell, she shoots to her feet and doesn’t even raise an arm (she usually has to raise an arm) before he’s flying back into the wall with a shocked yelp.

Chewie roars, and her eyes are blazing.

Han has struggled to his feet behind her and she feels his large hand on her shoulder, warm and squeezing just-a-bit-too-tight and he says, angry eyes more brown than green and pinning Calrissian to the ground: “You set us all up real good, didn’t you, _friend?”_

She remembers him – Calrissian, that is. She only just remembers him, the way his eyes flash as he picks himself up from the floor and waves a hand to stop his guards from knocking the two of them to the ground – from the _sabaac_ den.

It’s the boy from the _sabaac den_ , with the clever eyes and the goading smile.

Han had won, that time, she remembers. She wan nine years old and they had won the ship.

Now, the concept of “winning” seems abnormally far-fetched, even to them – _them,_ of the youthful invincibility and reckless grins and two-fingered-salutes and –

She wishes Luke were there.

***

The Voice sends chills though her spine, her bones, her very core.

He says, “What lovely spirit,” as though commenting on a science experiment in a lab, and not a human soul. 

She spits at his feet, and is backhanded in the face by a white-armored hand, yanked back as Han yells and tries to stop them only to be kneed in the gut himself.

He says, then: “We can’t expect you to come quietly, then?”

He says, “Your anger makes you stronger.”

He says, “Im _possible.”_

He says, “Anakin’s brat? Of course you are.” 

(“ _Twins_ – I should have known.”)

He says (laughter, there is laughter in his voice, he is _pleased_ with her fury), “We must put them in the carbon freeze, to sedate this excitable behavior.”

(Full stop: the world tilts on its axis.)

He says, “Of course, we must test its effects on our friend Captain Solo first, to make sure they will not be killed. Don’t you agree, _Leia?”_

She can’t breathe.

***

They are childhood friends.

Well. _She_ was a child, at any rate.

And he was … something, perhaps pretending to be more grown up than he actually was and _gods_ , did he used to (still does) annoy her, but she’s known him for more than half of her life and sometimes, being stuck with a person for three weeks in the middle of deep space does things to your sanity, of course, but _this_ – this is different.

They’re childhood friends, after all.

When they held her down and forced her to watch, forced her to listen, her weapon taken away from her and the butt of a blaster smashed into the side of her face so that she’s disoriented, groggy, less likely to try and strangle Sidious with her own two bare hands because _leave him alone don’t you dare don’t you kriffing well_ dare – 

When they held her down, she thought that she would be haunted by those screams forever. 

This – this is _her_ fault. 

(Well, alright, it’s also very much his, and also that bastard Calrissian’s, and probably entirely the Emperor’s – but. But, it is her fault as well, because she is the one who started The Fight With Dad and –)

She’d thought that the screams would be the thing that haunted her forever, but she was wrong; that look in his eyes, when she told him –

(“I know.”)

– the way the shadows on his face make it look like he’s going to cry (she has never seen him cry), the way his mouth is set, and his eyebrows, and the blood stains under his nose and the swell of his cheek – she drinks it in and feels it imprint in her memory and wants to burn every single last Imperial to ashes.

***

(An interlude, take two: 

The man, standing up and pacing across the length of the room.

“I can’t – they’re blocking me off.”

“Both of them?” asks the woman, and her face is oh-so-pale.

“Yes, they’ve been doing it since. Since we – I don’t know, Padmé, this isn’t –”

“They may be fine. Ani, they may be perfectly alright, you don’t _know_ that.”

“I shouldn’t have – Leia – I shouldn’t have said those things, this is my fault.”

“She’s as strong-headed as you are,” says his wife, still gripping her mug of tea. “And you know how Luke follows her lead, even if he doesn’t mean to.”

“But Alpha five – Padmé, the Imps _knew_ about Alpha five.”

“Mon told me it was safe,” she whispers, and thinks that there are some things that a mother will never forgive herself for.)

***

Luke shows up, because of course he does.

Luke shows up, and they run into him in the hall – or rather, _he_ runs into _them_ , showing up right as Lando manages to gasp the words _we can still save him_ out from his position in the strangle-hold that is Chewie’s grip.

She senses him before either of them actually says anything, and stops glaring at the man in front of her (or, below her, technically, as he’s on his knees) to look up.

“Luke!”

_I’m so sorry, little sister._

“I came as soon as I – I felt you yelling and –”

“Chewie, put him down,” she says, rather than answer, because everything is just a tiny bit too fresh and she has this stupid angry prickling feeling at the back of her eyes. Lando chokes and gasps and doubles over coughing on the floor.

She ignores him.

“Sidious,” she says, and she can feel his name curdle on her tongue. “Sidious laid out a trap for us. We can – he’s back there, we need to stop him.”

Luke’s eyes flash with something indiscernible.

_Dad would worry._

_I don’t care._

_But he –_

_Dad always worries._

_Leia –_

_What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him._

She glares at him, pretends her hands aren’t shaking. “He thought there was only one of us, you know.”

“He – who thought there was only one of us?”

“’ _You’re Anakin’s brat’_ ,” she mocks, and switches her glare from her brother to the white wall behind her. “I think it was you he was after, at first.”

He looks at her, and his face slips into a mask of determination that makes him look uncannily like their father. “You’ll meet up with me?”

It’s unspoken – she _has_ to go the other way, has to try and stop the ship, there’s no argument there, not really – but they both know that she’ll come back to him.

“See you soon, little brother.”

The words “ _I’m_ older!” are thrown over his shoulder as he darts around the corner, lightsaber drawn.

***

She feels it, when it happens.

His scream is her scream. And it tears through her, on top of everything else, on top of watching that stupid ship fly away and not being able to do anything about it – 

There is sudden, searing pain, and it cuts through her mind and she gasps and yells out and 

_LUKE._

It’s like a blaring siren in her head, and Chewie and Lando both move forward because _kriff, Leia, are you okay?_ and –

Normal people don’t scream and clutch their fully-present arm to their chest and then struggle to their feet a half-second later with a wild look in their eyes.

She can feel him, sense him, hear him in her head.

_(“NO! You’re LYING!”)_

She runs.

***

(An interlude, take three: 

A young woman, glaring at her father.

“I’m fully capable of going out there on my _own_ , Dad!”

“No, you’re not! You don’t understand how dangerous this is, Leia. We’re fighting in a _war_ , this isn’t one of those games you and Luke played as kids –”

“I don’t _treat_ it like a game!”

“Dad.” Luke, quiet, from the three-legged table. “Maybe you should –” 

“I refuse to let my only daughter risk her life because she thinks that she’s ready for something that she’s _not!_ ”

“Your _only daughter?_ I’m more capable than half the other fighters out there, Dad, you can’t just hole me up because I’m family, that’s not _fair –”_

“I will _not_ stand by and risk your –”

“You’re not risking anything! This is _my_ life too! _My_ choices, _my war_ , not just yours!”

He lets out a noise of frustration and runs his hand – mechanical, just like the gesture – through his greying hair.

“I know that! Don’t you think I know that? I’m the one who – who brought you and Luke into this damn mess in the first place. But you’re not – both of you, you’re not old enough for this, Leyley, you can’t –”

“We’re not kids anymore, Dad,” says Luke, as Leia lets out a frustrated noise, small frame tense and wired and more upset than it is acceptable for a Jedi to be, and turns her back on him.

“Luke,” he starts, but then closes his mouth. He doesn’t – can’t – think of what to say.

“Save it, Dad,” she spits out, facing the door. “I know what I’m capable of, and so does Luke. You can’t protect us from the world forever.”

She leaves, and her brother sighs and follows her.

And he sits down, heavy movements and tired limbs.

“Krething gods.” 

Muttered, angry. If Obi-Wan knew about this, he thinks, he would – well. He’d probably look smug. And say something along the lines of, “when _you_ were that age …”

Damn.)

***

(But when he next reaches out, he can’t feel them. It is more frightening than he cares to admit.)

***

She picks him up off the floor and struggles not to gag at the smell of burned, charred flesh, cradles his arm so that it doesn’t bump against anything. Face pale, lips thin, hair-coming-out-of-its-braid, and she wants nothing more than to –

What? Kill Sidious? Relish the feeling to driving her ‘sabre through his mangled corpse again and again? No, that’s not it, because that is – a distinctly un-Jedi-like thought, and she feels the bile rise up in her throat. Injustice, she thinks.

She wants to purge the world of injustice, but Sidious is standing in her way.

Metaphorically, of course, because if he really _were_ standing in her way at that particular second in time, the two of them would probably either already be dead or –

Or worst.

Because she realizes, with a sinking feeling in the pit of her chest and Dad’s words, _you’re not ready for this, Leyley, you don’t understand_ they’re ringing in her thoughts and she _realizes_ – she doesn’t trust herself. 

Not anymore. Not now.

(They barely make it onto the Falcon on time. But they make it.)

***

Somewhere in the delirium of half-conscious pain, Luke starts muttering things.

Which worries her, because these are things that she can’t sense through her bond, almost as if he’s deliberately blocking the thoughts from – 

From himself?

_What?_

“Not – ‘s not –”

 _Hush, Luke,_ and she pushes his hair back on his forehead and is reminded with a jolt of another person she –

No.

She picks at the scab just-barely-forming over her eyebrow for something to do and grips her brother’s hand in hers.

“He’s not – didn’t go … Mom. We’re not his –”

_Luke, what’s wrong?_

“Dad …”

She swallows. And realizes, suddenly, that she very much misses her father.

***

(An interlude, take four:

A smile, the type only a mother can give.

“If you’re that restless, maybe you can go talk to Supreme Commander Mothma about the Alpha five posting.”

“Alpha five,” says Luke, and the word rolls off of his tongue experimentally. “Huh. What d’you think, Leia?”

“Sounds good,” says his sister, leaning against the table and looking at Mom. “When do we leave?”

“Tomorrow, I think. They’re in need of supplies. Maybe you can ask Han –”

Leia makes a face, but Luke grins. “He’d probably be up for a supply run, yeah.”

“If we paid him enough,” mutters Leia, and Mom sighs through her nose. 

“I hope you two aren’t fighting again.”

“Did we ever _stop_ fighting?”

“Well, I’m certainly not going to stand in your way,” says Mom lightly, “if that’s how you enjoy spending your time with him. But I can think of a few reasons why –”

 _“Mom.”_ And Luke is fighting a grin at his sister’s blush.

Another sigh; Mom, Luke thinks, is supremely talented at hiding _her_ knowing grins. “Tell your father that you’re going, alright?”

“Fine,” mutters Leia, and Luke glances at her, once, quickly. 

“See you, Mom,” he says.

“Stay safe,” says their mother.)

***

She didn’t tell him.

Stubborn that she is, she didn’t tell him, and now she’s stumbling down the Falcon’s ramp with Luke pinned to her side, her arms encircling his waist and shoulders and holding him upright because he can’t do himself, because he’s got a goddamn fever that hasn’t come down since their jump into hyperspace, because he’s _lost a krething hand –_

She could have let Chewie carry him. That would’ve been the logical choice. But. 

She had to do it herself.

( _My fault_ , she thinks weakly, blearily, tiredly, and has she even slept once in the past three days? Gods only know, and she doesn’t have the energy to wonder, at any rate.)

She feels Dad before she sees him, as she always does – as she’s done since she was three years old, really, how she knows he’s within a five mile radius of her on instinct, knows when he’s worried and when he’s happy and when he loves her (always), and she wonders why she ever thought it would be a good idea to block him out.

But then he’s burst through the hangar doors and Mom is right behind him, and she feels _fear_ – raw fear radiating off of her father in waves and it washes over her like a blanket and she barely registers Chewie’s roar from behind her, or Lando’s yelp as he’s hauled off the ship and thrown to the floor, and all she can manage is,

“ _Dad,_ ” croaky and rasping and she-feels-like-she’s-going-to-cry, and then he’s _there_ , right beside them and holding Luke up with her and Mom is at her other side with a hand on her back and she feels her steps fumble.

“Dad,” she says again, “Dad, I’m so sorry –”

But Dad only says “Hush,” in a soft, firm voice and tightens his grip on Luke.

***

It’s when Luke is safely on the medicenter cot that she collapses onto the floor. 

“Leia!” gasps Mom (because Dad is currently-not-there, pressing issues of “your kids brought an alleged traitor back on their ship to a Rebel Base and That Is A Problem, General Skywalker” calling his attention), and drops down to her knees beside her. “Oh, Leia, sweetie. He’ll be alright. Your brother will be fine, my love.”

She presses her face into Mom’s shoulder and tries to stop her hands from trembling.

“’S my fault. I shouldn’t have fought –”

“No,” whispers her mother, and there is pain in the way that her skin is stretched tightly across her face. “No, my lovely darling girl, it is not your fault.”

“It is, Mom, I – if I hadn’t – everything is. Everything that happened. It’s –”

“Shhh,” soothes Mom, and strokes her hair, falling loose from her braids of three days past, out of her face. “It’ll be alright.” 

And then: “Where’s Han, Leia?”

She moves her face from its position against Mom’s shoulder. Blinks twice. Swallows.

“I.” And she can’t get any farther than that. 

Her face crumples.

She is nine years old again, her shoulders shaking and her breath coming out in gasps; knees drawn to her chest, because when it all comes down to it, this is _her_ fault, not Palpatine’s.

(And yet, even thinking his name brings an acidic wave of hatred, boiling up in her stomach and cutting at her insides and she thinks, briefly, that a Jedi musn’t hate.

Not like this.)

Mom holds her on the floor and strokes her hair and doesn’t ask any questions. 

And Leia cries.

***

“So,” says Dad.

She doesn’t look up, because she knew he was there already – had been for the past three minutes. Her knees are drawn up to her chest again, back pressed against the plastic chair beside Luke’s bed. She hasn’t left his side since the day before.

“So,” she agrees.

“They’ve got Calrissian locked up. We’re going to have a formal interrogation later.” A pause. “He says he helped you escape.”

“He did.” In a manner of speaking.

“Okay.”

Deep breath.

“Dad –”

“I don’t. I don’t want to hear an apology.”

She looks up, and sees the redness of his eyes, the way his scar is stretched awkwardly across his eye because he’s trying to stay calm – he always does that, she remembers, when he’s really upset.

But maybe, she thinks, he’s not upset for the reasons she thought he was.

“I’m just – I’m so glad you’re safe.” He takes a step forward, voice hoarse. “And that’s all that matters. Okay?”

A whisper: “I’m just so angry.”

She feels the surprise rather than sees it, because as well as she knows him, he is still exceptionally adept at schooling his emotions into neutrality. 

(Mom says he wasn’t always like that. She’s never been sure if that’s meant as a good thing or a bad thing.)

“Angry,” repeats Dad, pronouncing the word slowly, like something long-forgotten, becoming re-acquainted with its syllables. “At Palpatine.”

“I. Yes. No. I don’t – part of it.” She swallows. “Part of it, I’m mad at myself. But – I’m angry with him. Too.”

“And that’s making you angrier with yourself, because you think that you shouldn’t be feeling this angry.”

She looks up, stunned.

“That’s –”

“Exactly it?” Dad sighs, heavily, and comes down to sit on the floor beside her chair. “Well. This is my fault.”

“Yours?” She can almost laugh. “I was under the impression it was _mine_.”

“No.” And his breath comes out in a broken half-laugh, mechanical hand clenching involuntarily the way it always does when he’s anxious. “Gods, no, you – Leia. Leia, my darling girl.” Looks up at her, and she feels the tears well up in her eyes again. “My little fighter. This is not your fault.”

“If I hadn’t –”

“If I hadn’t been so worried that you would make my mistakes, then maybe you wouldn’t have made them,” says Dad softly, and she feels her mouth snap shut. He looks so tired, so much older than his forty-three years, and at times like this she finds it difficult to believe that he’s actually younger than Mom. 

“Dad …”

“Leia. Leyley. Hurt is natural. Pain is natural. Anger – is a natural reaction. And blaming yourself –” harsh, bitter laugh – “that’s natural, too. It’s what you do with it – what you do after. That counts.”

“I’m sorry,” she whispers. “I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you. If I hadn’t gotten mad and ran off –”

“No.” Firm, gentle.

“But if I’d _told_ you –”

“Then I would have stopped you going, and none of this would have happened?”

She swallows, and can’t bring herself to answer. Dad shakes his head, and smiles slightly, self-deprecating and mirthless, and she knows that look; she sees it on herself all the time.

“I’m starting to think," says Dad. "That it might be embedded into the fabric of the Force. The whole Skywalker- men-losing- right-hands-in-epic-battles-with-Sith-Lords thing. So it might have just happened anyway.”

She doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “Don’t let Luke hear you say that.”

Dad grimaces, scar twisting and eyes pained.

“I never meant. I never meant for any of this to happen to you two. To be part of it, like this. The whole point of keeping you apart was to keep you _safe._ ”

“We wouldn’t have made it very far without Mom and Luke,” she says softly, and turns her head so that she can look at him properly, cheek resting on her knee. “You know that.”

He sighs. “I know. Keeping you apart wasn’t a solution, either. But still, sometimes I think …”

“I love you, Dad.”

Dad smiles, eyes flashing almost mischievous (almost – if her weren’t so tired and weighed down and worried and nearly-going-grey – _almost_ mischievous), and puts his hand, skin-and-flesh-and-bone, over her own, dangling over the side of the chair. “I bet I love you more.”

(She remembers this game, sitting in the starlight on the edge of the desert and pretending they were the only two people in the galaxy.)

“I love you the Inner Core and back,” she recites, and smiles through the tears in her eyes.

“Now that,” he whispers softly, “is a terribly long way.”

**Author's Note:**

> What Palpatine Tells Luke will be revealed at a later date.  
> the suspense is killing you, I know.  
> Also, I have no idea what Alpha five is - I made it up completely and totally off the top of my head. AND, note that the ages are a little younger than they are in canon, because in trash family au everything's sped up just a bit.  
> SO.


End file.
